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Journal of Political Marketing

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The Branding of States: The Uneasy

Marriage of Marketing to Politics
Jonathan Rose

Queen's University , Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Published online: 20 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Jonathan Rose (2010) The Branding of States: The Uneasy Marriage of Marketing
to Politics, Journal of Political Marketing, 9:4, 254-275, DOI: 10.1080/15377857.2010.520238
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15377857.2010.520238

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Journal of Political Marketing, 9:254275, 2010

Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1537-7857 print=1537-7865 online
DOI: 10.1080/15377857.2010.520238

The Branding of States: The Uneasy Marriage

of Marketing to Politics

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JONATHAN ROSE
Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

This article reviews the growing literature on state branding and

argues that any attempt to understand the impact of advertising
and marketing on politics cannot be divorced from the larger
phenomenon of privatization of the state. The article examines
the way in which states have marketed themselves drawing on
examples from Canada, the US, the UK, and other nations. It
argues that the practice of state marketing is a pernicious one,
and the ability of states to change their public perception through
branding exercises is called into question.
KEYWORDS government advertising, political communication,
political marketing, state branding

One would not normally think of nations as diverse as Jordan, Poland, the
United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada as having much in common.
Among them are advanced liberal democracies, a former communist country,
and a quasi-democratic monarchy. Despite the breadth of ideological
opinion among them and the significant difference in things such as fundamental freedoms, equality, and degree of industrialization, these five nations
are alike in at least one significant way. Each of them has used advertising
and public relations companies to market themselves both internally as a
way of shoring up domestic public opinion for the regime and, more fundamentally, externally as a way of projecting a brand image to businesses,
leaders, and the public in other nations. If some are to believed, the rise of
the branded state has taken nation-states down paths they have not traveled.
Does state branding represent a shift in what states have always done, or has
the intrusion of marketing and public relations companies forever altered
traditional functions of nation-states? This article argues that while the
Address correspondence to Jonathan Rose, Department of Political Studies, Queens
University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, K7L 3N6. E-mail: jonathan.rose@queensu.ca
254

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integration of public relations officials into statecraft is a new development,

state branding cannot be separated from the larger phenomenon of the
privatization of the state in all sectors. Moreover, the success of state branding is called into question. Any state that use branding exercises as a way of
changing public opinion misunderstands the tremendous power of the
media to shape and mold public perceptions and the inability of the state
to separate its manufactured image from our existing preconceptions.

THE CONTEXT FOR BRANDING

The development of state branding is consistent with the broader trends of
privatization of traditional state functions. It was Max Weber who argued that
the state maintains a monopoly of coercive power (Weber, 1964, p. 154), but
with privatization that locus of decision making and authority has shifted
from the state to private capital. When examining the phenomenon of state
branding, it is important to recall that brandingwhich on one level is
simply the privatization of one element of state communicationsis part
of a larger trend. It is the most visible tip of this communications iceberg
where the worlds of advertising and marketing have become inextricably tied
to the world of politics or, to use Daniel Boorstins words, advertising is the
characteristic rhetoric of democracy (quoted in Romanow, de Repentigny,
Cunningham, Soderlund, and Hildebrandt, 1999, p. 24). Increasingly there
has been a subtle but profound shift in the way the media discuss politics.
Advertising has subsumed so much of our public consciousness that the
way we talk about politics is through the language of advertising. Concepts
such as selling and brand loyalty, not to mention market reach and logo visibility, are no longer confined to Madison Avenue boardrooms but are central
elements to the communication plans of corporations, political parties, and
nation-states. If we are to believe Grant McCracken, they are central to
who we are. In his book Culture and Consumption, McCracken argues that
our identity, meaning, and how our culture is formed are all shaped by
advertising. He writes that through advertising, old and new goods are constantly giving up old meanings and taking on new ones. . . . To this extent,
advertising serves us as a lexicon of current cultural meanings (1988,
p. 79). The nation-state and the meanings it connotes, both old and new,
are shaped by the received images, words, and arguments of advertising.
Politicians are clearly aware that the nation-state needs to create an
image that leads to favorable connotations. Valery Giscard dEstaing, the
former president of France, suggested that Europe needs to rebrand itself,
perhaps even changing its name to the United States of Europe. We need
a name which gets across our brand, he said (Rotzoll and Haefner, 1996,
p. 2). Nelson Mandelas branding of South Africa as a rainbow nation also
speaks to the effort of leaders to change perceptions. A rainbow, with its

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mixture of different colors, is a perfect metaphor for post-apartheid South

Africa and was embraced by Opposition leaders and the media as an appropriate symbol of the new nation. Even small nations have felt the need to
market themselves. The kingdom of Jordan embarked on a path of state
marketing. King Abdullah himself chaired the organization called Jordan
First, which is the slogan of the new Jordan. According to the king, the
goal is to implant Jordan in the hearts of Jordanians (Sawalha, 2002).
Belgium too has joined the fray. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt hired a
company to change its public reputation after scandals involving child pornography, corruption, and tainted chicken. Peter Van Ham writes that in
an attempt to clear the air, Belgium has decided to introduce a new logo
and hip colors and will sport the cool Internet suffix .be as its international
symbol (Van Ham, 2003, p. 2). As its model, the country has used Virgin as
an example of a small company that isnt big but you see it everywhere you
look (Van Ham, 2003, p. 2). Elsewhere, tiny Estonia has changed its label to
pre-EU or even Scandinavian instead of a Baltic state or a Post-Soviet
state. Just how did such a situation arise, and what are the implications of
national governments marketing themselves in the same way as companies
market soap or hamburgers?
States have used marketing to create positive impressions, but the roots
of marketing to create negative impressions run deep. Ying Fan argues that
the tendency to portray other nations less favorably is a much more common
technique than the positive marketing we are seeing today:
In political marketing, manipulating the images of ones own country
against those of enemy countries has long been used as a powerful
weapon in propaganda, from the evil Soviet Empire in the Cold War to
the recent labelling of three countries as the axis of evil. A name could
also be coined to brand a region: for example, Hong Kong, Taiwan,
Korea, and Singapore were widely referred to as the Four Dragons in
the 1980s (Fan, 2005, p. 7).

The roots of state branding can be found long ago in the early 20th
century. It was then when the historical and deep connections among governments, political parties, and advertising firms were formed. In Canada,
Reginald Whitaker writes that the link between ad agencies and the Liberal
party were forged after World War I. Whitaker writes that if experts could
package and sell a war, presumably they could package and sell the Liberal
party (1977, p. 222), and in foreshadowing the Gomery Inquiry of 2005 that
examined links between the governing Liberal party and advertising agencies, Whitaker goes on to suggest that In Canada, government and political
advertising are inextricably linked (1977, p. 219). Like many developments
in modern political communications, the United States was one of the early
advocates of using public relations and spin to change public opinion about

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private as well as public goods. In the 1930s and 1940s, George Gallup urged
the government to extol the power of opinion polling to counter the effect of
entrenched interests and to provide it guidance. Gallup thought polling was a
democratizing trend and a tool of accountability (see Robinson 1999,
pp. 4041) and, in doing so, established the dependency of modern governments on private polling firms. In addition to establishing the link between
public relations officials and government, the US was also one of the first
to embrace eagerly the connection between political parties and advertising.
This shouldnt be a surprise. At present, the United States spends more
money on advertising than 66 other nations combined, including all of the
other members of the G-7 economies (Rotzoll and Haefner, 1996, p. 2). In
the political realm, advertising is almost the sole currency. For example,
the cost of mounting a senatorial seat, much of which is spent on advertising,
can average more than $5 million (Newman, 1999, p. 14). In the 2008 presidential election, Democratic Party candidate Barack Obama spent over $42
million in one week in October on TV ads.
The blurring of the political and commercial is not just confined to the
United States. In Britain, political parties do not broadcast advertisements
during elections but instead major parties are granted five party election
broadcasts (PEBs). According to Scammell and Semetko, as the audience
share of the PEBs have dwindled, the trends and tactics associated with marketing have increased (1995, pp. 819). Political parties increase the media
coverage the PEB gets by holding press conferences to announce the hiring
of a Hollywood director or using a tactic called the Benetton strategy,
described by Scammell and Semetko as the deliberate injection of close-tothe-bone emotive material in the hopes of providing hostile reaction from
rival politicians and thereby creating a news story (1995, p. 21). The Labour
government of Tony Blair has moved with great vigor in embracing the
commercial aspects of politics, whether that is increasing press officers, relying to a greater extent on pollsters, or being the countrys largest spender on
advertising, as it was in 2001 (Scammell, 2003, p. 133). The reliance of
political parties on marketing may provide one clue as to why states are
relying on the same advertising and public relations firms when they form
governments.
The intersection between political party marketing and state branding
suggests at least two things about the discourse of politics. First, a study of
modern politics cannot be divorced from an understanding of the role of
symbolic handlers who routinely organize, plan, and manage the communications of political actors. Increasingly, there is a divorce between the
thoughts of a leader and his or her words. This further perpetuates cynicism
among a public weary of seeing politicians as empty vessels for prepackaged
messages. A infamously leaked memo from the Philip Gould, Tony Blairs
strategy and polling advisor, admits that the public sees the Labour Party
as spin, no substance (Scammell, 2003). Ronald Reagans speech writer,

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Peggy Noonan, argues that this cynicism is a result of speech writers who are
paid to write sound bites and wrap speeches around them (Noonan, 1990,
p. 73). Roderick Hart (1987) argues that the tremendous increase in the
number of speeches that leaders must give necessarily means that we know
less about the leaders than we did before the advent of electronic media.
All of this creates not only a devaluation of politics but, in fact, an abdication
of governing, according to Newman (1999).
The disconnect between the true thoughts and words of political leaders
versus those orchestrated by their public relations consultants and its
intended effect of obfuscating the nature of this relationship has been
observed by others also: Many countries make considerable efforts to
cultivate their images abroad, especially in the US and Europe. As a rule,
no precise linkage between commissioned [public relations] activities and
what appears in the mass media can be traced. Typically, one can do little
more than guess at what suggestions were made, which were excepted,
and how they were implemented. The precise nature of intervention remains
somewhat of a mystery (Kunczik, 2003, p. 121). Western leaders mouth
platitudes about transparency and accountability intended for consumption
by domestic audiences while simultaneously condemning their developingworld counterparts for the absence of the same qualities. The reality is that
political accountability, transparency, and public input in the policy formulation process is at its most camouflaged in precisely those nations most able
to afford, and most experienced at using, the marketing strategies of the
public relations firms they employ.
Metaphor has been a central element in creating brand segregation
between the developing world and the US in particular. According to Ivie,
metaphor has been a powerful rhetorical technique of American foreign
policy in particular. He argues that:
Democracy, as a motivating term in US political culture, is readily
identified with war through the ubiquitous trope of disease and related
metaphorical vehicles that participate in a wider rhetorical universe of
decivilizing imagery. This convergence of the language of democracy
and war translates the barbarism of a distempered domestic demos into
the savagery of a threatening external Other, exacerbating perceptions
of peril that sustain an improbable quest for national security through
global domination (Ivie, in Beer and Landtsheer, 2004, pp. 7578).

The type of public relations employed by a nation-state, according to

Kunczik, is dependent on whether the goals of the public relations are
virtuous. He writes that:
[One] form of [public relations] for states, meant primarily to compensate
for structural communication deficits, aims mainly to adapt the image to

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news values by trying to influence mass media reporting. Structural

international [public relations] aims at correcting the false images
previously created by the mass media. Manipulative [public relations],
on the other hand, tries to create a positive image that, in most cases,
does not reflect reality, including lying and disinformation. . . . The AIDS
campaign of the KGB and the disinformation campaign of the Reagan
administration against Muammar Qaddafi are good examples of this
(Kunczik, 2003, pp. 123124).

The state branding literature argues that public relations is used by all
states to serve different purposes, but always as a tool of enhancing state
legitimacy. While there is a well-developed literature on political party advertising, those scholars who study state branding remind us that the advertising
of states behavior between elections is as noteworthy as party advertising
during elections. In both cases, the logic of advertising is the same in that
it invites a certain associative logic that is both powerful and easy to communicate via television. Kathleen Hall Jamieson argues forcefully that the
visual grammar of television is associative and that a person adept at visualizing claims in dramatic capsules will be able to use television to short-circuit
the audiences demand that those claims be dignified with evidence (Hall
Jamieson, 1988, p. 13). In other words, visual claims are more effective than
verbal claims at making arguments without evidence. The branded state,
with its emphasis on the aesthetic and the politics of the emotion, represents
the extension of the triumph of the visual over verbal. Fan notes that: As
there is no tangible offer in a nation brand, its attributes are difficult to define
or describe. The only benefits a nation brand could create for its audience are
emotional rather than functional (2005, p. 8).
Advertising may be the most common form of mass persuasion that we
come across in our lives. Arguably, it rivals almost all other institutions in
terms of influence and pervasiveness. It infuses our habits, customs, and
language. It shapes our mores and reinforces class, gender, and racial distinctions. It is one of the first forms of literacy learned by children. Given all this,
it is not a surprise that among American children one of the most easily
recognized and familiar icons is Joe Camel, a cartoon character designed
to sell cigarettes (see Mangini v. R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.). Gillian Dyer
suggests that it could be argued that advertising nowadays fulfils a function
traditionally met by art or religion (Dyer, 1986, p. 2). For states that want to
reach out to disaffected youth, advertising provides a vehicle that is perfect in
terms of audience reach but quite imperfect in terms of democratic dialogue.
Scammell notes that this exact tactic was used by the government of Margaret
Thatcher in trying to sell her social policies to the British public. Great
effort and a huge amount of public funds were spent by her administration
trying to convince voters that her radical policies were having their desired
effect; however, the objective facts contradicted the governments public

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relations efforts. In this case, advertising arguably became a substitute for

policy. Scammell comments that:
Employment expenditure, through the Department of Employment,
Manpower Services Commission, and other training agencies, increased
as a proportion of the Central Office of Information home spending from
about 2 percent in the years 19781986 to 26 percent in 19861987. . . .
There is no clear correlation between the expenditure and unemployment levels. The 19791983 Thatcher government inherited unemployment of some 1.5 million and the number doubled by 1982. The
official jobless total stayed at more than 3 million until 1987. . . . The
peaks in employment advertising, the timing of general elections (and
the involvement of Saatchi & Saatchi) seem more than mere coincidence,
a fact not lost on critics of the government . . . expenditure before
legislation became almost the norm rather than the exception, and
the use of costly publicity, especially television and advertising, far
more common. . . . [It became] the megaphone solution (1995, pp. 208,
230231).

When applied to the marketing of states, the effect of advertising may

be harder to discern but more invidious than the marketing of consumer
products. It is harder to discern because there is no product to purchase,
no way of determining the effectiveness of an advertisement. Our perception
of nation-states also prefigures our encounter with any marketing of that
nation-state, compounding the difficulty of measuring the effect of the advertising. Indeed, one of the fundamental problems of the effects literature is
that it is difficult to disaggregate ones perception of the product from ones
own preconceptions. Do we think more positively of the British image
because of the marketing of Cool Britannia or as result of the media coverage of the subject or perhaps as a result of the our own ideas we had about
the UK? Kunczik (2003, p. 121) argues that as a rule, no precise linkage
between commissioned [public relations] activities and what appears in the
mass media can be traced. Typically, one can do little more than guess at
what suggestions were made, which were expected, and how they were
implemented. The precise nature of the intervention remains somewhat of
a mystery (2003, p. 121).

BUT DOES IT WORK?

This raises one of the most intractable problems to those researching in this
area: How can we assess the effectiveness of marketing and advertising campaigns? While asking whether marketing works might be a reasonable question, answering it is plagued with difficulties. As a form of communication,
advertising shapes our sense of values, even if it does not change or affect

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buying habits. As Stephen Kline writes, we should see advertising not as

manipulation but as a vehicle for situating . . . brands within established
cultural patterns and ideas (1993, p. 27). In addition, the grammar of advertising invites a certain way of looking at the world. It does not encourage
reflection or deliberation, but rather encourages the application of marketing
principles, such as the famous four Ps: product, pricing, promotion, and
placement. Paul Rutherford argues that it shouldnt be a surprise then that
a writer in Advertising Age (November 28, 1988) would describe the launch
of George Bush as a line extension of the presidency of the renowned
Ronald Reagan (2000, p. 6). Moreover, his son George W. Bush has taken
state branding to new heights or depressing depths. Bush Jr.s landing on
the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln was not just political theatre.
It symbolized the replacement of political leaders for props: the president as
a product placed in artfully chosen backgrounds. After September 11, 2001,
Bush spoke on Ellis Island in New York, the Statue of Liberty lit up by three
barges of giant lights, the kind used to illuminate sports stadiums. While it
was he who was speaking, the real subject was the Statue of Liberty and
the values that it came to symbolize.
Despite the best effort of public relations and marketing professionals to
spin their preferred image of a particular nation, such attempts will be
undermined if they are not congruent with its target audiences preexisting
impressions, which may have been decades or centuries in the making.
The efforts of marketing professionals overemphasize the power of marketing and underestimate the grievances deeply embedded in culture, institutions, and historical memory. To assume that the quick fix of a marketing
campaign can change these is just folly.
Fan provides an example of the power of historical memory and the
difficult task of changing perceptions about a given nation:
A nation has multiple images. China, for example, could conjure up the
images of being the largest country with 1.3 billion people, the Great
Wall, giant pandas, kung fu, Made in China, etc. Time seems to be an
important factor here in determining peoples perceptions. In spring
2003, China was associated with the SARS epidemic, while in 1989 it
was the Tiananmen massacres, but in 2008 it will be the Olympic Games.
What image is retrieved depends on the audience and the context. To
mention Germany may still bring painful memories to some European
countries about the Nazi atrocities. To the Chinese, it is Japan that is
associated with the war crimes committed 60 years ago (Fan, 2005, p. 8).

The impact of years of socialization and the reinforcement of a dominant frame will profoundly affect the symbols that we recall when we think
about a state. Repositioning something as complex and, often, contradictory
as the image of a nation-state is made even more difficult because of the
resistance individuals have to changing long-held perceptions amidst the

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cacophony of messages of persuasion coming at them in todays media

environment. Kunczik contends that we select those events that reinforce
our preconceptions. He provides an example that in September 1947, a
6-month propaganda campaign to promote the United Nations was begun
in Cincinnati (its slogan was Peace begins with the United Nationsthe
United Nations begins with you). It was largely unsuccessful because those
who paid attention to the message were primarily individuals already interested in and informed about the United Nations (2003, p. 119).

THE POWER OF THE LOGO

One of the central features of branding campaigns is to identify the product
with a logo. Logos are a pivotal way to reinforce the values of the advertising
campaign in one discrete sign. Much of advertising and promotion are
attempts to link a symbol to a core value. The Statue of Liberty to freedom,
the Mounties to order, and the Berlin Wall to liberation are all examples of iconic symbols standing for political values. The logo then becomes an essential
way of tying that value to the symbol. Moreover, in a landscape cluttered with
the debris of advertising signs, logos are an important cultural artifact in
providing differentiation from other competing modes of identification.
Writing in 1899, Thorstein Veblan in The Theory of the Leisure Class
coined the phrase conspicuous consumption to illustrate how individual
worth was measured by our ability to possess or consume. Our involvement
in the wider world is through the possessions we own. As a result, we retreat
from the public sphere into our own private world where possessions instead
of community are what link us to others. Building on the work of C. B.
Macpherson, William Leiss in his book Limits of Satisfaction suggests that
marketing in late capitalism is noteworthy for its fusion of the symbolic
and material benefits of goods sold through advertising. As embodied in
logos, the symbolic value of SUVs or Nike is far greater than its intrinsic
value. Peter Van Ham writes that British management consultant Peter York
has even argued that Nikes swooshffitick [sic] logo means precisely what the
crucifix meant to an earlier generation in ghettosit promises redemption,
vindication, and a way out (Van Ham, 2001, p. 2). Of course, those wearing
Nike swooshes may not be consciously aware of their deep ideological
meanings, but it may nonetheless guide their behavior. Logos thus not only
are an economic vehicle but are also important in creating culture. They are
an important semiological sign that links the attributes of the product to a
value system, creating a shared meaning or code among those who are able
to decode the sign.
The logos of nation-states serve the dual purposes of acting as a
commercial vehicle to compete in the marketplace of nation-states and also
create culture by acting as a condensation symbol for the nation. As such,

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logos present themselves as a tool for product differentiation as well as a

creator of political culture. It is easy to recognize that states should market
tourism, economic development, or lower taxes to lure capital or people.
Of the marketing function of the states logo, Van Ham writes that branded
sates depend on trust and customer satisfaction. We talk about a states personality in the same way we discuss the products we consume, describing it
as friendly (i.e., Western-oriented) and credible (ally), or aggressive
(expansionist) and unreliable (rogue) (2001, p. 2). As a vehicle of product
differentiation, logos of nation states or any government might be an important part of the states strategic economic advantage and as a way to market
itself to international audiences. An obvious example of this is the French
governments strong protection of the champagne trademark. Its not just
confined to nation-states. The city of Toronto developed a $4 million branding strategy designed to trumpet Torontos ethnic diversity, imminent
expansion of cultural institutions, and trendy new entertainment areas.
The rebranding exercise was seen an important way to differentiate it from
Vancouvers spectacular urban setting and Montreals European flavor
and year-round festivals (Lewington, 2004, p. A13).
When logos serve to create culture by acting as a condensation symbol
for a nation, city, or state, it should give us reason to pause. Writing of the
branding of cities in the Netherlands, Hans Mommaas argues that logos
provide identification, recognition, continuity, and collectivity (Mommaas,
2002, p. 34). The marketplace for automobiles or fast food is crowded, so the
Mercedes logo or golden arches are attempts to sear the brand in the minds
of consumers. This is also true of the logos of nation-states. It is almost a
cliche to say that globalization has two conflicting tensions, one toward
homogenization and the other toward tribalism. Branding fits in perfectly
to the era of globalization, which simultaneously favors unrestricted trade
as well as differentiation of mass-produced products by branding. What
was once a self-evident relationship among place, group, and culture is
now fraught with tension. Through the magic system of advertising, as
Raymond Williams called it, states are attempting to distill the conflicting
images and ideas we have of a nation-state into a simple logo.
The problem is that, if successful, the image created by a logo is in some
sense a mere simulacrum: a copy of a nonexistent original. Our own ideas
about the logo are projected on to it and replace the product. The product
then becomes an adjunct of the logo. Naomi Klein reminds us that this is
what happened in the case of Absolut vodka ads, where its brand was
nothing but a blank bottle-shaped space that could be filled with whatever
content a particular audience most wanted from its brands (Klein, 2000).
To this, we can add Benetton ads, which feature images of burning cars, refugees, or cargo ships: rhetorical signs far removed from what they signify.
Because of laws governing alcohol promotion, beer ads never show anyone
drinking beer and often do not even show the product. Rather, the viewer is

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invited to make inferences between the images and the logo. The ramifications for vodka, clothing, or beer are one thing, but they are quite another
for nation-states. Fan also expresses concern that political leaders are placing
greater emphasis on the value of branding their nations than is warranted by
the evidence of its success. He states that:
Nation branding has been vaunted as a panaceasomething equivalent
to a grand national economic development strategydesperately needed
by developing countries. . . . Nation branding is believed to be able to
work miracles and solve many of the worlds problems, for example,
the poverty gap between the North and the South. It is undeniable that
branding is an extremely powerful tool, but it is equally important to
realize that branding is only one part of a marketing strategy [that] itself
is a part of the whole business strategy. Branding will not work if other
components of the strategy (finance, R&D, production, distribution) fail
to deliver what the customers want. Nation branding is no exception
(Fan, 2005, p. 11).

Nation-states have recently realized this semiotic truth. Its easier to

change perceptions than the material conditions of citizens. In Canada,
recent efforts at rebranding the Canadian Forces were met by resistance by
focus groups who could not reconcile the some recent scandals of the
Canadian Forces with their apparently new inclusivity (Aubry, 2003, p. 1).
Governments persist in believing that if they are successful in changing
public opinion based on a revamped logo, they need not change behavior.
A new Hollywood film, produced in association with the White House, is
an attempt to show President Bush as a determined and principled leader.
Using a medium that has such strong currency among Americans represents
the formal merger of Washingtons ambitions with the Hollywood entertainment industry (Saunders, 2003, p. 1). While it is now formalized, the link has
existed for years. Arnold Schwarzeneggers candidacy for governor of
California blurred the line between politics and entertainment. Ronald
Reagans governorship as well as his presidency did the same. Both make
politics and show business inseparable by trading on-screen characters to
advance political aspirations.
Like the Nike swoosh that transformed a second-tier athletic clothing
company to a global colossus, nations are adopting marketing techniques
to erase impressions of colonialism, military conquests, even bad food and
weather. Great Britain and Poland are two such examples. In what has been
described as a post-political logo, Poland hired the advertising giant DDB
Corporate Profiles to create a new logo for its country. The design is
described as
a red-and-white kite whose tail is held by a dancing stick figure that
doubles as the K in the word Polska. The Polska lettering is thick,

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red, and curvaceous, a nod to the emblem of the Solidarity movement.

The red-and-white design on the kite is a four-squared checkered pattern
reminiscent of the emblem on Polish warplanes (Boxer, 2002, p. 1).

The logo was an attempt to reposition the Polish brand in the evercrowded European marketplace. Its traditional emblem, a white eagle, was
deemed as too common (Germany, Russia, and the United States all have
eagles as their national emblems). The kite logo tried to break the connotation of Poland from its military past and rebrand the nation as a peaceful,
cosmopolitan, and modern. According to the focus groups conducted by
DDB Corporate Profiles, among the negative connotations of Poland were
words such as gray, cold, vodka, poor, white, unsmiling, friendly, sad,
boring, hard-living, fast-driving, car stealing, argumentative, chauvinistic,
chaotic, and anti-Semitic (Boxer, 2002).
While the jury is still out on the verdict over the success of Polands
rebranding, the British excursion into the world of branding suggests that it
might work in the short term, but our perceptions persist long after the campaign is over. Wolff Olins, a British marketing company, was hired by Tony
Blairs government in 1998 to rebrand the UK. Focus groups had reported that
the product of the UK was associated with imperialism in many parts of the
world (Wolff Olins Web site, 2004). While the logo of the Union Jack was
widely known, it too was seen as quaint and strongly associated with the
brands other adjuncts: the royal family, rain, and bad food. Wolff Olins suggested that Great Britain could seem like a more hip and happening place if it
erased the Great from its name and ditched the Union Jack (Boxer, 2002,
p. 1). The British think tank Demos, in an important document that influenced
the Blair governments thinking on branding, argued that the UK brand had
six core values: institutions, empire, industry and language, culture, religion,
and sport (Leonard, 1997, pp. 2126). These ought to form the core of any
newly branded Britain. The result was the Cool Britannia campaign that
included a radically changed British Airways livery, a pop version of God
Save the Queen, and a campaign that targeted international media. The latter
yielded a Newsweek cover story that declared London as the coolest city on
the planet. The attention this overt campaign received in the press might
suggest some immediate success, but public opinion polls tell a different
story. A survey conducted in 1999 and 2000 of young opinion-leaders in 28
countries found little change in the perception of Britain as a result of the
branding effort. Their description of Britain as weak on creativity and
innovation, not to mention class-ridden, racist, and cold (Economist, 2002,
p. 31) suggests that a failure of the Cool Brittania campaign to change any core
values. Further studies by the UK polling firm MORI and the British Council
have echoed this, finding that attempts to change Britains image have not
so far succeeded and there is a general ignorance and vagueness about
Britain and what it is like (OShaughnessy and OShaughnessy, 2000, p. 63).

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The failure of the Cool Brittania campaign offers an important lesson for
all branding exercises. Branding, like advertising, cannot work in opposition
to strongly felt preexisting beliefs. The campaign failed because it did not
represent the reality of modern Britain and seemed implausible to outsiders
looking in. More troubling is that this branding exercise offered little to
those who wish to change the material conditions that underlie Britain.
The Economist had this blunt assessment: So unless the government can
concoct a new image that accurately reflects the best of modern Britain, its
rebranding campaign will achieve little more than lining the pockets of the
advertising and public relations industry (Economist, 1997, p. 43).
The reluctance of political leaders to tackle structural problems in
the economic and social spheres and, instead, to opt for superficial, cosmetic,
and symbolic changes via branding has been observed by other authors.
Fan (2005, p. 11) cites the apparent success and the necessary underlying
factors that were already in place of the Spanish governments attempt
to change its nations brand image, as evidence of the need to view
economic=social reform and the branding of a nation as two inextricably
linked processes. He argues that:
To the proponents of nation branding, Spain has provided a most
successful example of rebranding a nation. However, this is a kind of
misunderstanding. The change in the national image of Spain is the result
of fundamental changes in its political, economic, and social systems
[that] have taken place over the past 20 years or so, not the result of some
wishful campaigns in nation branding. Branding might have played a role
in the transformation, but its importance should not be exaggerated.
In contrast, Zimbabwe is a country with rich tourist resources, but
under the tyranny of the current regime the country is unable to exploit
these market opportunities. Before political reform takes place there is
no role for nation branding.

BRANDING THE UNITED STATES: THE FACE

OF NEW PROPAGANDA
The gap between public opinion attitudes toward the state and the manufactured image of the state can often be too large to be closed by any state
branding exercise. Perhaps nowhere was this more clear than in recent
rebranding efforts of the United States, where a Sisyphean marketing challenge was given to Charlotte Beers, the first U.S. undersecretary of state for
public diplomacy, whose job was to shape effective messages explaining
US policies in new and ongoing issues (U.S. Department of State Web site,
2003). She was hired just days after the US invasion of Afghanistan in October
2001 and given an unprecedented amount of moneyover half a billion
dollars in 2002for selling America and its values to the Muslim world in

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particular (Beers, 2002). She has described the United State as a beautiful
brand and television as a fast delivery system for the American governments message (McKenna, 2003, p. 2). Examining its failure might provide
some insight into why state branding is likely to be not successful.
Many of the techniques used are not more evolved than the propaganda
attempts of 60 years ago. Efforts in Afghanistan such as dropping pamphlets
that show women being beaten by the Taliban or distributing radios that are
only able to receive Voice of America have failed miserably (see Leonard,
2002, p. 48). Crude tag lines on the pamphlets such as Is this the future
you want for your women and your children? did not resonate with an audience whose primary concerns lay elsewhere. Otherssuch as the $15 million
Shared Values campaign, featuring Muslims talking in glowing terms about
their life in the United Stateswere quietly and quickly scrapped by the State
Department (McKenna, 2003, p. 2). The goal of the Shared Values campaign
was to use advertising to make the argument that the US was a misunderstood place. The radio, print, and television ads showed Muslims of all ages
extolling the virtues of living in the United States. One ad showed a young
Lebanese-born woman with her three smiling children at a school softball
game saying, I didnt see any prejudice anywhere in my neighborhood after
September 11 (Perlez, 2002, p. A1). Designed to be broadcast in a number of
Islamic countries, the US government found them rejected by nations that
would not accept paid programming from a foreign country. The campaign
was decried as being Muslim as apple pie by some who thought it did not
respond to the perceived problems in US policies but merely papered them
over with ads. In Indonesia, an ally in the war on terror and one of the few
Islamic nations that has shown support of US policies, the ads were seen as
not relevant to Muslims concerns (Murphy, 2003). While perhaps not
directly attributable to the ad campaign, the percentage of Muslims there
who view the US favorably has fallen from 75 percent in 1999 to 61 percent
in 2002, according to a US Department of State=PEW poll (Murphy, 2003).
Some of this failure might be a result of attempting to reach the wrong
audience with the wrong vehicle. As the Cool Brittania campaign showed,
one cannot radically transform impressions of nation-states through branding
exercises. In the case of the US branding exercise, the target audience is the
non-elite 15- to 59-year-olds (Perlez, 2002, p. A1) rather than elite opinion
leaders, and the vehicle was advertisements, something with which Charlotte
Beers, a former ad executive, had some familiarity. The range of opinion
among this group, it is fair to say, must be quite broad, and any single advertisement will not resonate with the entire cohort. The diversity of beliefs
among target audiences is captured by John and Nicholas OShaughnessy,
who write that it is not easy for a nation, as opposed to a brand of product,
to have a consistent persona because a nation is such a constellation of
different images (OShaughnessy and OShaughnessy, 2000, p. 60). There
are few comparisons in commercial marketing where the audience is as

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amorphous and heterogeneous, as in state branding. Advertising requires a

knowledge of the target demographic as well as repetition of a plausible
message. The early efforts from the Office of Public Diplomacy did not seem
to pay heed to either of these basic rules.
A further reason to explain the failure of US efforts might be attributed to
the difficulty of creating new ideas rather than managing existing ones. Peter
Van Ham writes that
Brand management involves the process of cautious, often measured
supervision of existing perceptions. In this sense the USA is considered
a corporate brand, since the USA (or America) is not itself the primary
brand, but the manager of a series of related subbrands (its art, sports,
media and technology, as well as its foreign policy) (2003, p. 433, emphasis in original).

What this suggests is that the branding campaign of the US government

failed because it did not manage existing perceptions but attempted to change
them by changing the perceptions of the state. As Van Ham notes, ones perception of Brand USA is inextricably linked to what he calls the subbrands:
the things around which we form our opinions. Nation-states wish to change
the corporate brand, but our affective orientation to nation-states is linked as
much to the substantive manifestations of that brand: its cultural products like
film, media, art, and sport. To put it in the marketing parlance of John and
Nicholas OShaughnessy, It is too difficult to put across a positive image of
a nation that emotionally resonates with the consumer sufficiently to affect
behavior over the whole range of a nations products (OShaughnessy and
OShaughnessy, 2000, p. 63). In Australia, a branding campaign failed because
of the inability of any one marketing exercise to reconcile the diverse and
competing images of that country. One study of this campaign found that
for it to make sense, there must be some agreement among the people of
Australian as to an Australian identity. One can question whether such an
agreement exists (Fischer and Byron, 1997, p. 95).
Another reason to explain the failure of branding exercises has to do with
the role of the mass media. The literature on branding has yet to take into
account the influence of the mass media to shape and condition the effectiveness of branding campaigns. Like other aspects of political communication
such as advertising or political debates, we need to understand the influence
of the mass media to filter and interpret the messages of government. The
meaning of political ads, electoral debates, and even branding cannot be
separated from the way in which the media frame them. For example, viewers perception of debates changes after the mass media have interpreted the
debate. While citizens may not dramatically shift their beliefs as a result of the
media after a debate, the media can play an important role among those
whose support is soft or whose opinions are wavering (see Lanoue and

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Schrott, 1991). The power of the media to frame the issue is well-known to
those who study political ads and campaign communication. It is the reason
that political parties employ spin doctors post-debate or as advertising campaigns roll out. The same logic holds true for branding exercises: The success
or failure of a branding campaign is in part dependent on the way in which
the mass media have framed it. Cynicism among the media about the motive
of government seems to be sufficiently high that it is difficult to find a laudatory news story of any branding campaign. This cynicism seems to be warranted if one looks at the behavior of the president of the Czechoslovakian
National Council, who issued his countrys declaration of independence on
a Sunday for public relations reasons: Sunday was a slow news day, so it
would get more space in the worlds newspapers (Kunczik, 2003, p. 120).
Branding is not always about using government-sponsored advertising
or public relations. Often branding uses the tools of culture to persuade.
While dropping leaflets may prove to be ineffective, one of the most successful humanitarian operations in Afghanistan was UNICEFs inoculation program, which relied on using popular culture. Disseminating the importance
of inoculations through an Afghan soap opera on the BBCs Pashtun service
allowed 7 million children to be treated in 3 weeks (Teicholz, 2002). Less successful was the American internal branding exercise. The US Armys Taking
It to the Streets is an attempt to market the US army as a cool consumer
choice. Unlike the American governments external marketing campaign,
which was more like old-fashioned propaganda, Taking It to the Streets
was more of an attempt to use youth culture as moral suasion. Its hip-hop
flavored campaign complete with brightly painted Hummers and contests
that test potential recruits ability to climb up rock walls and shoot baskets
markets the army as an adjunct to lifestyle choices. Roving recruitment
vehicles that make customized dog tags connect hip-hop and urban culture
to the Armys recruitment goal of 100,000 enlistees (Joiner, 2003). Competing
with the blizzard of images and messages that the average young person
will see in a day demands that a variety of communication channels be
employed. Interactive Web sites, video games, and music and clothing all
help create a connection so that, in the words of the Armys ad agency,
theyre able to see the brand in a different light, as cool (Joiner, 2003).
These efforts may have only reinforced the notion that poor, black inner-city
kids are the labor source for American Armys interventions abroad and draw
attention to larger problems that plague the Army. The different results in the
US governments Afghanistan campaign and its Army recruitment campaign
might be explained by the different motivations of the audiences. Perhaps
using culture for branding exercises will work more effectively if audiences
have a reason to heed the message and if the appeal is to the motivations of
the audience instead of trying to win them over through arguments.
The US Armys efforts suggest that state marketing is so pervasive that in
some cases they cannot be distinguished from the culture of which they are

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part. The result is a commodification of citizenship and a reinforcement of a

shallow nationalism. It is difficult in some cases to see the line between
commercial advertising and state marketing. The $5 million Canadian
government ad campaign for the 1992 Winter Olympics had the tag line
Our athletes, the pride of a nation, which was not too different from Roots,
the clothing company that outfitted the Canadian Olympic team that year.
Roots used pride to sell clothing. The government used Canadian pride to
sell its version of nationalism.

OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES?

Is state branding a new innovation or does it represent an evolution of what
states have always done? One could argue that the marketing of states merely
represents the application of new technologies to the very old function of
public diplomacy. States have always sought comparative advantage, and
the marketplace of capitalism is the latest venue for this to occur. If this is
the case, we need not fear the effect of branding. On the other hand are
observers who are critical of the penetration of marketing and politics. They
argue that while states have always marketed themselves in some ways, the
pervasiveness of the marketing suggests a new partnership between government and economic interests embodied by advertising firms and public
relations professionals. The relationship has altered not only how states
communicate but what they communicate (see Rose and Kiss, 2005).
Peter Van Ham argues that the branding of states is a development to be
embraced. He suggests that states that lack the relevant brand equity will not
survive (2001, p. 5). It is precisely because the consumer marketplace is so
crowded that states must adopt the language of advertising and promotion in
order to engage the public in the dominant language of the day. Moreover,
Van Ham suggests that state branding enables nations to create a benign
campaign that lacks the virulence of deeply rooted nationalism and that
marketing campaigns will gradually supplant nationalism. Going further,
he argues that by marginalizing nationalist chauvinism, the brand state is
contributing to the further pacification of Europe.
Pippa Norris (2000) is more sanguine about the novelty of the increased
presence of image consultants in the political process. About election
campaigns, she contends that they have been transformed by these [technological] changes in the news industry and also by the widespread adoption of
professional marketing. As with developments in the media, new forms of
electioneering essentially supplement, rather than replace, older techniques
(Norris, 2000, p. 312).
Van Hams benign view of marketing (not to mention nationalism)
needs be examined closely. One need only see the ferocity of consumer marketing campaigns to realize that, like nationalism, they too can have virulent

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strains. Moreover, Van Hams claims miss two fundamental problems of

marketing states like soda. First, governments that engage in marketing are
saying that they are more interested in changing public opinion than the
foundation on which that opinion rests. Why change the economic conditions of citizens if you need only change their perceptions of economic
conditions? Branding campaigns, such as the US marketing campaign in
Afghanistan, respond to public opinion instead of seeking to understand
the basis of those opinions. To put it another way, Americans are not changing their beliefs and attitudes in response to low public levels of public
support by Muslims. Rather, they are attempting to shift the frame by which
Muslims see Americans. In this sense, it can be seen as a conservative development, one that sees exhortation replace action.
The futility of such an attempt to substitute branding and repositioning
as substitutes for effective policy making is echoed by Fan, who reminds us
that no matter how clever and appealing a marketing campaign is, major
policy changes (actions not sound bites) are needed to change peoples
perceptions, and this may take many years (Fan, 2005, p. 12).
A second, more significant reason to be cautious of Van Hams embrace
of state marketing can be found in the writings of Jurgen Habermas.
Habermas, in his influential work The Structural Transformation of the
Public Sphere, suggested that a democratic polity required a vibrant public
space, and without it the state was not accountable. State branding contributes to this erosion of the public sphere. Habermas writes that the
public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people
come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated
from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a
debate over the general rules (Habermas, 1989, p. 27).

The medium of this public debate was reason. Habermas had unwavering faith in the need and ability of the public to engage in reason. Rational
faculty was to be realized in rational communication, he argued. State
publicity, as Habermas called it, was antithetical to reason as it relied on
the secret chanceries of the prince (1989, p. 35).
For Habermas, the marketing of states further contributes to the
collapse of the public sphere and the demise of rationality in public
discourse. The transformation of the public sphere into a medium of
advertising was aided by the commercialization of the press (1989,
p. 189). Private enterprises evoke in their customers the idea that in their
consumption decisions they act in their capacity as citizens, the state has
to address its citizens like consumers. This is at odds with some authors
like Dick Pels, who argues that this trend creates greater information
density that that has enhanced the capacity for judgment of the average
citizen (2003, p. 60).

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The branding of nation-states may not be a new development of

statecraft, but it is troubling for a number of reasons. First, the sophisticated
techniques of states create inferences and deductions based on the power
of the visual. As with political party ads, associative logic may be at odds
with the verbal logic of the ad. By using the techniques of commercial
advertising, states are appropriating the grammar of commercial ads and
applying them to objects that are public. Second, the fact that opinion
management lends itself to speaking at citizens rather than engaging them
in dialogue means that the critical rationalism so revered by Habermas is
marginalized.
This latter point has the most implications for a vibrant democracy.
Meaningful public participation is dependent on the free flow of information
that creates an informed and deliberative engagement. Bennett and Manheim
(2001) discuss the contrary impulse of our modern democratic dialogue:
Information is typically publicized to mobilize and demobilize segments
of the public to serve narrow strategic objectives, often masking the
identity or intent of the communicator in the process. . . . Indeed, the very
transformation of publics into exclusive target audiences is a blow to the
democratic ideal of publics as inclusive deliberative bodies (Bennett and
Manheim, 2001, p. 280).

Third, state branding may be a proxy for public policy as exhortation

replacing or obviating substantive public policy. The state becomes less
about the welfare of its citizens and more about the management of the
brand. Finally, this development furthers the perception that politics is about
posturing and hype: a development that can only harden cynicism toward
politics. Why participate if the government is not listening and if the stakes
do not matter? The persistence and growth of this new development may
help explain why levels of public trust have fallen and, more ominously,
may further the perception of citizen as consumer and government as
conduits for consumption.
Historically, the categories of citizen and consumer have been seen as
opposites. To be a consumer was to engage in private choice and individualism dictated by markets. Citizenship, however, has been about the
provision of collective goods and individuals engaged in the res publica
working toward a collective effort. Recently, these two terms have become
conflated. The ascendance of state branding represents one consequence
of that. In this sense, branding is seen as the tip of that very large iceberg that
sees a consumer citizen (Scammell, 2003, p. 131) as a replacement for citizens. This article has tried to demonstrate that state branding is not confined
to governments either on the right or left but are endemic to a broad
ideological range of governments. It is doubtful whether state branding is
effective, but its recent pervasiveness suggests a new way of doing politics.

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AUTHOR NOTE
Jonathan Rose is associate professor of political studies at Queens University
in Kingston, Ontario, where he teaches courses on political communication
and Canadian politics.